Cerberus Capital Management has struck a deal for one of Canada's big auto parts suppliers, a global player with a rags-to-riches story.
The deal for ABC Group Inc. will help drive forward the private firm, a manufacturer of thermoplastic products, the two groups said in a statement.
Details of the deal weren't disclosed on Friday, but senior ABC people moved around.
Mary Anne Bueschkens, president and general counsel, was named chief executive. Deputy president Derrick Phelps was named president, while Cerberus also said it is putting a new board in place, led by Daniel Ajamian, now chairman of Reydel Automotive.
"We look forward to our next phase of growth alongside Cerberus as we enhance and expand our integrated product solutions and further broaden our extensive thermoplastics manufacturing expertise," Ms. Bueschkens said in the statement. Stepping down as chair and CEO is Helga Schmidt, who helped build ABC with her late husband, Mike, who died in early 2009.
The company was founded in 1974, with just one plant, and today has 6,000 employees with operations worldwide in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Poland, Japan and China.
Born in Croatia, Mike Schmidt spent eight years in refugee camps in Austria, then headed to Germany and, finally, to Canada in 1956.
According to a profile of the couple in a local Ontario publication a couple of years ago, when ABC reached the $1-billion mark in annual sales, the couple came to Canada with just $64 and a two-year-old son.
Ms. Schmidt, who married Mike when she was just 17, styled hair, and her husband held several jobs.
According to the interview, Mr. Schmidt enjoyed plastics and machinery, launching Supreme Casting and creating a plastic windshield washer fluid tank in 1968.
"The Schmidt family, the management team and the Company's more than 6,000 employees have built a world-class organization that is extremely well-positioned to capitalize on trends driving the evolution of the automotive industry," Cerberus managing director Dev Kapadia said in the statement.